Yay! one month later and i finally started cutting. I made my first cuts today, the side panels. The toolpathing and engineering took a lot longer than I ever expected. Well the toolpathing was easy, but designing the cab and everything that goes with it is one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. This is way more complicated than I was expecting when starting out. I spent the last week straight figuring out silly things like... how to mount the marquee lights, and speakers, and fans... here is a photo of my first cut:

Here is the router that I will be using to make my cuts:

Oh yeah, rather than lay out everything and cut it one time, I decided to toolpath each panel individually so if I need to recut a panel then I don't have to do the whole thing all over again... plus I get to use some scrap 3/4 marine grade plywood we have lying around!

Here is a quick video of the machine in action... Warning, the 1/8" bits make awful sounds when they cut. Someone was asking about the benefits us a 5 axis router (hmm.. may have been another thread). Take a look:

no but I'm going to cut that speaker panel again and I can record it. I wasn't real happy with the cut, I was doing a zig-zag pass when it should have been cutting one way when going with the grain... Not to mention I didn't retract high enough when it transitioned between the 2 circled so it made a slight cut between the circles... Oops!

This is gonna look really cool! I'm definitely gonna be following this one. The fact that you have spent so much time planning first means that you know exactly what you want from this project. That's one of the things I learned early on... to think ahead and do your best to visualise exactly how it will turn out but at the same time think about the reality of those parts fitting together.

I'm not a fan of bat-tops at all (I'm much more a "classics" player so it's ball tops for me). But I appreciate that they were the original sticks fitted to those cabinets. Are you just going to be playing the 90s NEO-GEO games on it? Just wondering if you intend to play any 4-way classics as well.

Regarding the suppliers.... if a supplier screws up but actually fixes the problem really fast then I would give them kudos for that. It's when things go wrong that you really see how good a company's customer service is. It's no good shipping stuff out lightning fast to hundreds of satisfied customers if on the rare occurance you do screw up you then drag your feet over it.

I've had a few problems over the years getting artwork printed. My main problem is being in the UK and all the main suppliers being in the US. Gameongraffix provide excellent work, but I too have had problems with them being slow. Also two out of the three occasions I used them they produced pieces of artwork at completely the wrong size. Which of course meant I had to wait another long time to get the correct stuff shipped across the pond (which they did fix so that's a plus point). You actually have to put in the dimensions of the art you need when you order (and it appears on your order too) so I cannot see how that should be a problem.

I used a company called Classicarcadegraffix for my Star Wars art and they were excellent. Very fast and efficient. The shading of the prints for the front panel may not have been exactly true to the arcade original, but putting that aside the quality itself was superb. The side art is simply stunning.

This is gonna look really cool! I'm definitely gonna be following this one. The fact that you have spent so much time planning first means that you know exactly what you want from this project. That's one of the things I learned early on... to think ahead and do your best to visualise exactly how it will turn out but at the same time think about the reality of those parts fitting together.

I'm not a fan of bat-tops at all (I'm much more a "classics" player so it's ball tops for me). But I appreciate that they were the original sticks fitted to those cabinets. Are you just going to be playing the 90s NEO-GEO games on it? Just wondering if you intend to play any 4-way classics as well.

Regarding the suppliers.... if a supplier screws up but actually fixes the problem really fast then I would give them kudos for that. It's when things go wrong that you really see how good a company's customer service is. It's no good shipping stuff out lightning fast to hundreds of satisfied customers if on the rare occurance you do screw up you then drag your feet over it.

Thanks, I hope it will look cool... The reason for the planning (over-planning) is that I'm going to be really space constrained. There really is not that much room for error. Also the router needs exact dimensions (to 1/1000"), but wood is funny... I'd settle for 1/100" We'll see how every thing goes come assembly day. I'm still debating wether or not to assemble then paint or paint then assemble then touch up paint...

This machine is only for neo-geo games. It's going to have real neo-geo hardware inside (MV1C PCB) so that's all it will play. I'm already planning on my next cab after this one.... I'm looking to build a vertical bartop with a 4 way joystick and probably one of those 60-in-1 jamma boards. I'm looking at doing something like a mini Donkey Kong or Pac Man cab (I know those have been done to death but it would look really cool next to the mini neo-geo). I think a vertical 15" would overwhelm this horizontal neo cab that I'm building so I'm probably going to look for a 12" monitor to use in the build. I already have most of the hardware ready to go... as I was buying parts for this cab I was purchasing double, even triple, what I needed. I even got a true 4 way ball top from Groovy Game gear ready to go...

Yea, I don't fault jammaboards for the bad packaging since they were so quick to fix. I'll probably be ordering more stuff from them for the next cab....

So I cut the rest of the parts tonight and recorded it with a go pro camera and apparently if you don't have enough light in the room all the videos will be out of focused! Stupid video camera! Anyways, foe what it's worth I recut the speaker panel and reported it on YouTube blurry and all. You can kinda see what's going on here:

Well I made some progress today... I drilled out all the holes for the dowel joints and the cam bolts. Then I thought what the heck lets try and dry fit everything to see if it all fits together ok.

Here you can see some stuff in place. I stuck the marquee light holders on and it fit perfect.

Here you can see that with the monitor installed there is a 1/4" gap between the speaker panel and the monitor. That gap serves 2 purposes, it allows enough clearance to be able to install the monitor and it will eventually be filled with a sheet of plexiglass.

The bottom of the plexiglass will be attached to the piece of wood below the monitor bezel with a screw. The screw will only be visible when the control panel is open like so. The control panel will be attached with a piano hinge on the bottom panel and to keep the CP from opening a lag bold will come up from below the cab through the 1/4" hole you see there

The lag bolt will screw into this

Here is a side view shot. I stayed pretty true to the original design shape.

Here is a shot of the back of the cab without the door and the lower rear panel. I didn't attach the lower panel because it only connects with cam bolts and the rear door only connects to the lower panel. On the right is the power supply and on the left is the neo-geo PCB. There is more space in there than I was expecting.

Yea, unfortunately there is still a lot of other things that need to fit in there. the CGA to VGA Board, the audio amplifier, case fans, terminal strips, and a crapload of wires...

The cartridges rack should be installed on the top part of the space, with carts facing out the back of the cabinet. All the other things you mentioned could be installed in the base, on the right and back of the Neo-Geo motherboard.

If nothing has changed, your marquee should be more or less 15.35 x 3.56~5.00 inches. According to EMDKAY, Neo-Geo mini-marquees are <a href="http://emdkay.net/catalog/pulstar-mini-marquee-p-239.html"> 4.5 x 5.5 inches</a>, meaning you can't use them on your cabinet. Of course, you could order scaled-down mini-marquees (I'm sure EMDKAY and others can make smaller mini-marquees).

You could also add a barcode scanner and put a barcode label on your carts (on the left or right), wire up a microcontroller and you'd be able to have an automatic mini-marquee LCD that updates itself according to the cart in the motherboard.

In any case, I don't remember where I got it, but attached is a high-resolution single-slot (space for one mini-marquee) Neo-Geo marquee graphic. It's a PNG file so there's no artifact and it's gonna be easy to modify if you need to move things around a bit or redraw the mini-marquee rectangle and cutout.

There is no room up there... It is actually smaller than it looks... Not to mention that is a MV1C so the cartridges sit vertically, and you would need space above it to remove the cartridges. Plus the wall on the left above the PCB is where I was planning on wiring the audio amp so i'd have easy access to adjust the volume if necessary. Above the Power Supply will be terminal blocks for the 5 and 12v supply. Between the PBC and the power supply will be the air intake fan. It's funny, the camera really distorts the image. The Marquee's visible area will be 16" wide by 3.25 high. I have all the artwork for the cab printed out already... just working on the wood filling, sanding, priming, sanding, painting, sanding, painting, sanding, painting, sanding painting......... uhh.... Next time I'm going with laminated MDF!!!

I'm about to start a similar project. Will mostly be NES-games, and only 8 inch. Just because I have about all of the hardware laying around + a couple of Bubble Bobble stickers that will fit nicely (25cm wide)

I'm about to start a similar project. Will mostly be NES-games, and only 8 inch. Just because I have about all of the hardware laying around + a couple of Bubble Bobble stickers that will fit nicely (25cm wide)

As for "next time"... If I had access to that CNC, I would simply re-cut the panels again with laminated MDF.

THIS!!! I've had it!!!! Going to the plywood store tomorrow and buying a sheet of laminated mdf! Spent all day sanding and painting and sanding and painting and it still looks like ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---! AHHHHHHHHHHHHJ!

As for "next time"... If I had access to that CNC, I would simply re-cut the panels again with laminated MDF.

THIS!!! I've had it!!!! Going to the plywood store tomorrow and buying a sheet of laminated mdf! Spent all day sanding and painting and sanding and painting and it still looks like ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---! AHHHHHHHHHHHHJ!

Can you film it all again? Even a video at 5-10 times the normal speed would be fun to watch.

So I was originally planning to recut everything on black combi-core Duramine but when I got to the plywood store on Saturday I realized I reft my truck bed cover on so I'll have to push everything back to this coming weekend. Also it will give me time to re-tool path all the pieces since I have to adjust for the new thickness which is true 3/4" (.75") rather than 3/4" plywood which is actually 23/32 or appx .72". While I'm waiting to get back to the plywood store I decided to play around with a new design for my next cab. We have some 1/2" Duramine scrap sheets lying around so I decided to try out a bartop galaxian (pacman) shape cab. It's a little big for the 10" screen I have for it... I'll be making some more adjustments for the monitor mounts and control panel. But what you see in the profile shot is a perfect 1/2 scale of the top half of the cab. The white duramine cuts real nice. I'll be throwing a 60 in 1 board in there, so I'm debating what kind of artwork to go with... galaxian artwork or some generic multicade artwork. I haven't really found any multicade style artwork that i REALLY like. I may try and make my own if I end up going this route...

This is just a mock up to see how things will fit... I'll probably start a new thread when I actually get going on this cab...

That white cab looks really cool. The only trouble with that style cab for Galaxian or Ms.Pacman is that the monitor is laid practically flat. I think the tilt just matches the control panel so the whole thing is flat as it goes up. But that's only if you're going for real authenticity. Personally I'd tilt the monitor way up more for ease of viewing plus the fact it gives you way more space to fit stuff inside. Just depends how accurate a representation you want the bartop to be.

That white cab looks really cool. The only trouble with that style cab for Galaxian or Ms.Pacman is that the monitor is laid practically flat. I think the tilt just matches the control panel so the whole thing is flat as it goes up. But that's only if you're going for real authenticity. Personally I'd tilt the monitor way up more for ease of viewing plus the fact it gives you way more space to fit stuff inside. Just depends how accurate a representation you want the bartop to be.

You are correct! There is no way to do a true scaled down version of this style cab because of the angle of the monitor. At full scale the screen is best viewed with your head practically inside the cab. This is not an option at 1/2 scale. The monitor angle I'm going for with this cab will be parallel with a line from the corner of the side panel nearest the joystick and the corner nearest the marquee.

On a separate note, I just wanted to say that I really admire your work! Your DK cab is the nicest bartop I have seen. You have set the bar very high! A 1/2 scale Nintendo bartop cab is on my short list. Thanks for the inspiration!

So I recut the parts today! Everything turned out really well except for the fact that the laminate is crazy sharp! It's like working with razor blades. I have cuts and scratches all over my arms and hands. I videoed the entire cut process and will put the video up on YouTube later.

BTW here is the laminated wood I'm working with. The people I picked it up from calls it Duramine and it is awesome... It cuts nicely, and it feels strong. It has a plywood core sandwiched by a layer of MDF with a melamine exterior. Check it out when you build your next cab.

BTW here is the laminated wood I'm working with. The people I picked it up from calls it Duramine and it is awesome... It cuts nicely, and it feels strong. It has a plywood core sandwiched by a layer of MDF with a melamine exterior. Check it out when you build your next cab.

Seems like a very nice material indeed. The filename says Combicore, but you say it's called Duramine... what's the real name? Or are they both similar products from two different companies, hence the two names?